Swim Signatures: The 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout ROF 5

Swim Signatures: The 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout ROF 5

Swim Signatures. I just like this project. So, this is the mighty ROF 5 Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout swimbait that didn’t get the airtime it deserved in Southern Trout Eaters. Now, why would that be? Because of where the fish were and the time(s) of year we did most of the fishing and filming. The ROF 5 is a staple in my Huddleston approach. I usually have a ROF 5 and ROF 12 tied on every time. The ROF 5 is where “rate of stall” came from in my head. I can fish the ROF 5 much slower across a point, while still having the bait swim true, than I can the ROF 12 or ROF 16. The ROF 12/16 will want to sink out faster so you have to reel them a bit faster to keep the nose from pointing down. The ROF 5 sinks belly button first, something we captured in above video clip that is key. It falls straight horizontal and remains parallel to the surface of the water as it sinks which too helps you creep it along at a super slow pace and keep the bait oriented correctly.

ROF 5 means more stall, more neutral buoyancy, a bait that falls horizontal (vs. nose down). I’d best compare it to a properly rigged and balanced senko setup. Very slow horizontal fall with a lot of wiggling and undulating, but its the ability to swim it slowly on a perfect horizontal plain, and wag that tail super duper SLOW that gets this ROF destroyed by trout eaters.

The ROF 5 has different applications than does the ROF 12, and fishes really well in cold water, offshore, and along pieces of key structure where I know there are fish living, and I want to slow down and really stall them out. Think about grass fishing. As I progress and poke around places like Okeechobee and Guntersville with the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe, I’m using the ROF 5 a lot because of the buoyancy and stall factor which is very important in grass fishing, and it also all tends to balance really well with 80# Power Pro braided line fishing.

Watch in the video all the undulating and subtle things the Huddleston does while its swimming. Fins waving, head and body wobbling and literally swimming.

I’m planning on doing a whole series of thing solely around the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout, which will better compare ROFs and ‘things’. But this exercise is about the swim, the swim signature of a ROF 5 version of the Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout. I tell people who want to get started with Huddleston fishing, learn the ROF 5 and ROF 12 because they are both very good tools for hunting big fish, tournament or just solely trophy hunting. They are the 2 ROFs I most recommend (but don’t discount the effectiveness of the ROF 0 or ROF 16 either, they are just more ‘specialty’ but not duds by any stretch).

ROF 5, because it has no top hook, is perhaps the finest, most real swimming specimen you can feature. Hence, an almost 5 minute YouTube video of various angles and looks at the ROF 5 in the water. It deserves <5 minutes of your time. Or actually no, don’t worry about the ROF 5, just throw the ROF 12 and let me worry about it!

Stay tuned for more from our ‘Swim Signatures’ series. Kind of a fun project to look at what is going on under the water with the baits we fish, big and small.